


Dead Fish

by Mystic (gubbie)



Category: Shawshank Redemption - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Bisexuality, Bromance, Corruption, Epic, Existentialism, Historical, Homosexuality, M/M, Prison, Short Chapters, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:18:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3901066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gubbie/pseuds/Mystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawshank Redemption AU. Disregards the novella.</p><p>Joe Hastings, a young man sent to rot in Shawshank for a crime he did not commit, adjusts to life on the inside, befriending Red and Andy and their group of comrades. But when a rowdy prisoner, Sal Bosco, arrives, everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fresh Fish, 1954

**Author's Note:**

> CAST:
> 
> Joe Hastings: James Dean  
> Sal Bosco: Bobby Cannavale  
> Andy Dufresne: Tim Robbins  
> Ellis Redding: Morgan Freeman
> 
> I don't know how this came about, really. One second I'm teary-eyed, watching the credits of my favorite movie scroll over Thomas Newman's beautiful score; the next, I'm in Scrivener, pounding away at the keyboard and checking sources until I finish something of a first chapter for an AU fic. 
> 
> Life is weird like that.
> 
> This fic will follow the movie, abandoning the novella except where the two converge. Now, I'm not at all a good writer, but hopefully whatever ability I have serves this story well enough. It's focused on character rather than plot, so tolerance for character-driven stories is recommended, as well as acceptance for heavy male-male bonding and whatever divulges from it... In the end, I just hope you come to like Joe Hastings.
> 
> I've tentatively placed this in 1954, after Brooks Hatlen has been paroled and the weight of his suicide hangs over Red's gang. 
> 
> The exact age of the canon characters isn't known (correct me if I'm wrong). In the screenplay, Andy is described as being in his mid-twenties in 1947, so I've set him at 24 when he arrives. That means he's about 31 at the start of this fic. Red's age isn't given, but I've set him in his early fifties here. Joe is 21 at the start, and Sal is about 28.
> 
> Historical inaccuracies are almost guaranteed. Sadly. But please do point them out if you spot any!
> 
> Anyway, here is the first chapter. It’s pretty short, but they're all going to be short. Thank you for trudging through this mess of an Author's Note.

The slap of cold metal on his wrists. The night inside a cell. The sweat from a dream in which he'd ended up dying in such a room. The night pressing until he choked under the weight of tears. The fading of all the colors in the world.

He is longer Joe Hastings, but a shadowed face split by cell bars. His kiss goodbye was the slam of the judge’s gavel.

 

* * *

 

His hands are cuffed. His back's stuck to a bus seat. There are dark patches beneath his arms and his fingers are interlaced. Joe takes a deep breath, but the pit in his stomach only worsens. The air is acrid. His right eye still twitches from last night.

The potbellied man commanding the wheel wears sunglasses that inhale the road. The smacking sound of his chewing tobacco carries to the very back.

A dozen men are seated and cuffed as well. Their eyes hold nervous looks that sometimes flit between resignation and fear, as if they're toying with the unknown life that has been thrust upon them. There are two exceptions: a man stares emptily at the distant grass, and another one smiles to himself, like this is all just a big hoot.

Joe takes a deep breath and tries to relax himself, then takes in the view of the field whirring by, swift in its vanishing act. Maine is pretty this time of the year, unfathomably green, bristling with subtle winds he wishes to smell and feel, to slip away inside and become part of, invisible and far-reaching. Free.

Down the rounding drive, on a platform high above, moving dots are stark against the sky: officers wielding oil-black guns. They steady their eyes on the short annex of high chain-link fences leading into the yard. Men in prison getup start to crowd the perimeter, their eyes eager, their lips pulled back into sneers. Their fingers curl around the diamond shapes drawn from the metal and they press their noses to it to see better.

The bus moves through the opening gates slowly and stalls before a formation of officers lined shoulder-to-shoulder at the end. Clad in black, stony-faced, it is easy to mistake them for Death’s accomplices. Silver badges shine dully from their chests, assuring the location: SHAWSHANK STATE PENITENTIARY. 

The tallest one crosses to the vehicle as its doors fold open and reaches in. He pulls out the first man his hand can grasp, a man whose eyes won't budge from his shoes, and tells him to walk to the building that looms ahead. The man's steps tug along the rest of the imports, all of them connected by an ankle chain.

Joe is the last to leave the bus. As he steps off, he becomes closely acquainted with the unforgiving face of the tall, glaring officer. The man is immobile, and yet he manages chew Joe up and spit him out before he's forced ahead by the chain biting his ankle.

The surrounding prisoners are not so different from lions that’ve caught sight of bloody meat.

The clattering of the fences sounds like loose change rattling around in his skull, and as the length of the fence ends—as they tread across open ground—heat scales up Joe's spine and floods his face. He imagines them overrunning the procession. He imagines the guards standing back, their guns left untouched and their eyes watching, either biting back laughter or letting it all out.

But a P.A. system tells the old souls to head in for evening count, and the men disperse, tossing evil smiles their way. Smiles for the "fresh fish" to dwell on as they’re led into a half-lit hall for the welcoming process.

 

* * *

 

Chalk dust. That's what Joe is reminded of when the officer throws up a scoop of white powder. The stuff collides with his naked backside and sticks to the surface of him. The rest disperses, clouding the air like smoke, twisting away in the shafts of darkening light.

He coughs, still shivering from the cold water they sprayed not long ago. His blond hair is flat against his skull, dripping into his eyes.

“Turn,” a voice dictates.

He does so, and another scoop of white power hits him in the face, falling down his front. More clouds, more coughing. His skin stings.

“Move out,” the voice comes again, and a cloth is lazily pressed to his face. Joe takes it in his own hands, rubs, then cups himself, padding out of the cage.

Further along, he’s equipped with an itchy bundle of sheets and clothes. A toothbrush pokes out from the side, a pathetic little thing. Joe wonders if he could be described the same way.

The new lot—powdered white, teeth chattering, naked—look very much like sugared treats as they’re led into the cell block. They climb cold stairs with their eyes shuttered in fear of striking a wrong nerve or enticing ridicule.

Joe follows the line he was directed to, going up the levels. He nearly reaches the top before he gets to an empty cell that's supposed to be his. It is and it isn’t. He sets his bundle down on the cot, holed up in mossy darkness, flushed with dingy colors and faint piss-yellow light from the bulb hanging overhead. Home sweet home.

He dresses quickly, tripping some as he wrestles his short legs into jeans. He is eager to protect himself, hiding skin away as if hungry eyes lurk in a corner, and who is there to detest this? He’s heard enough stories about prison, and none of them were fairy tales.

A bit of water from the sink clears the delousing powder from his face, and a quick swipe of the tongue across his lips tells him they’re dried out and crumbling. His eyes feel swollen, frozen tears pressing behind them.

The shadows take on all kinds of shapes and an old fear of the dark is magnified.

Joe settles on his bed and breathes in. There's a musty smell. He doesn't know how to describe it, not exactly. Everything is new and confusing. And nothing is good, of course.

Somewhere, there is the faint drip of water.

But after a while it is no longer a mere sound, braiding with his thoughts. Inescapable. An inwrought mockery in its endless cascade.

Sleep finds him unexpectedly, thankfully, and his mind revels in images scattered across his twenty-one-year-old life.

...A baseball game on the fringes of some empty lot. The older boys laced around the fence rooted for him after an unexpected hit had set the ball on a path to the stratosphere. Their voices frenzied as he just stood there, astonished, his eyes caught by the swallowing sky: “Run, dumbass! Run run run!”...

...A small moment during a Sunday morning at church, a moment where the clouds parted and a holy sun shed a stream of light that turned everything gold...

...A kiss in the shadows, the glint of two smiles. Her name is still sweet on his lips...

Joe lives them all a second time before a deeper wave of sleep leaves him a thoughtless shell. Time passes, but not fast enough.

In the cell next to his, almost lost in the silence, there’s sniffling: a man cries.

 

* * *

 

Morning comes, tinging everything with pale blue light. The windows bleed dawn.

Joe stirs in his place against the wall, his mouth numb and his eyes raw from the night. The world around rebuilds itself as his mind staggers out of a fog.

Seeing the vertical shafts of steel and the uniform he adorns, he regrets to have opened his eyes again. Despite his wits, he had embraced the cliché that his falling asleep in this cell was the finale of an elaborate and alarmingly vivid nightmare in which he had gone to prison. _Nope_ , he thinks, _this is real. This is too fucking real._

Later, others wake. They pull sheets from their bodies, cots squealing from the movement. Prisoners dress silently.

Joe walks to the sink and splashes water in his face before grabbing the toothbrush. He would feel normal if it weren’t for his surroundings, of course. This is, to an obvious degree, like getting ready for school or work.

Then he pushes the thought from his mind. _Am I really trying to normalize the situation?_

He doesn't know how the conditions are around here, but it being prison, he’s smart enough to deny any comforting projections. Will he be lugging enormous rocks in the yard until his bones crumble? Will he boil beneath a blazing sun, swinging a pickaxe at the soil for hours? Finished, he strikes the facet shut and crosses to his bed, waiting for whatever there is to come.

What comes is this: a sudden alarm that shatters the morning. The bars of his cell slide away with an ancient grind. Across the room, men on every level appear from the gloom of their units, standing stoically in view. Joe follows suit.

Below on the ground floor, officers take count until satisfied. There are five, and their black caps seem to drown the light. The one called Hadley is among them like a secret blade, eyeing each level with disdain.

"Okay, move it," booms the squat one whose cap is very nearly his whole head. This sets in motion a game of Follow the Leader down the stairs, albeit with armed and spiteful observers.

Joe tries matching his steps to the march thundering in his ears.

_edited: sept. 1st, 2015_


	2. A Man Called Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voila, the second chapter. Probably not even the least bit good, but the story must go on! (Also, I've decided on a face for Joe: James Dean.)
> 
> Feedback would be excellent. Thanks for reading!

Joe’s mother is a wonderful cook. The simplest dinner could attract a crowd of thousands, surely.

So there is an unfortunate comparison to be made when grey oatmeal hits his tray. Without protest—should he have expected better?—Joe removes himself from the breakfast line and scans the mess hall for a suitable place to sit.

But the search is fruitless. There are no shaded seats in which he can disappear. Standing at the head of the mess hall, visible to all, he feels his sense of anonymity swiftly flake away.

Joe wades through the sea of prisoners to the best spot he can manage. He sets his tray on the table, his eyes locked on his unappealing breakfast should an aimless glance cause any trouble.

 

* * *

 

Joe’s capacity for labor has been made exclusive to the laundry room, where must thickened by moisture pervades the air.

And you're forced to breathe it in without mercy, for the room is saturated with men working in what is nearly the same oppressive heat of a July afternoon.

Though there is nothing but the steam and the smell and the orders given for more supplies and the whir of machines and the dampness of shirts, Joe cannot complain. Not thoroughly, at least.

Because he needs the stimulation as he sorts through the dirty clothes of men he has yet to know.

Without it, there is room for shadows to grow in the mind.

 

* * *

 

You know what Joe needs? It’s not something obvious, like an actual, comfortable bed or clothes that aren't uniforms.

No, what he really needs is a cigarette.

He had his first smoke when he was ten. The older boys had him tag along after that grand slam of his stole away the whole baseball game.

Their bikes screamed through the town streets before coming to a collective rest in the alley behind the soda shop, and soon one of them drew out a pack of Lucky Strikes that made its way around the huddle. Every boy took one immediately, until the carton came before young Joe.

He paused but he was not nervous. Rather, he acknowledged, despite his young age, that right then, while he was among a group of boys he had no business being around, the act of smoking was made symbolic, so much bigger than the moment.

The boy holding the carton shook it some and the rattling brought Joe back to his skin, where he promptly reached in and took out a Lucky Strike, lighting it with the matches that were going around next.

And so there he was, behind the soda shop, surrounded by Jimmy, David, Alden, Todd, and Buzz as he sucked down a cigarette for the first time.

He remembers feeling the air crush in his lungs, remembers coughing for a spell and even the bird that took flight from the sound of it. He remembers the older boys laughing as they watched, and how they put him to shame as they smoked without effort, breathing out clouds that assumed all kinds of shapes against the purpling sky.

They gave him the rest of the pack, and Joe had intended on keeping it as a souvenir.

But days passed, and he would later show off all the smoke clouds he could make to his friend Ritchie, who wasn't really his friend but they would talk and kick cans some, being the neighborhood outcasts, and that counted as something.

Ritchie was a near-sighted boy with a portly shape about him, a sheltered kid who still clung to his mother's arm. And so the boy would watch in wordless admiration as Joe finished a smoke and stamped it out on the ground.

Ritchie would stare at it for a while, choked by the smell but so lost in how cool it had once looked. So supremely cool.

What happened to that kid? Joe couldn't tell you.

Soon the performances were edged out by habit. Then preoccupation became dependence, and now his fingers ache to feel a cigarette nestled between them.

God—he must really be going crazy, because the smell of one rides the faint brush of wind that just now sweeps across the prison. It’s faint but it’s there, so subtle you have to scratch for it.

Now Joe's scanning the yard, his fingers flexing, his mouth partly opened, and he doesn't mind for this one moment that he may resemble a stumbling fool. _I practically am one_ , he thinks.

He has a short time about finding the man whose cigarette smoke is reeling him in from the yard like a fish from the ocean. The man is nearly bald and incredibly thin, so much so that his shoulders barely hang the shirt they all wear, it just droops from him like a poncho would.

As the man stands on the fringe, he takes deep, selfish drags and expels them over the heads of the masses.

Joe takes steps he cannot feel, then stops in his tracks. He needs a quick moment to stifle the nervous feeling that overheats him, that locks his jaws together.

Finally, miraculously, the sick feeling passes and he is near enough to say, “Excuse me.”

The man looks at him, smoke slipping past his eyes. “What the fuck do you want, new fish?”

“I was wondering where you got that?” He points feebly at the cigarette, being awfully bold. “Uh, could you—could you spare me one?”

“You must be outta your goddamn mind if you think I’m gon’!” the man says, incredulous. His cheeks flush red and a vein appears like a zipper in the middle of his forehead. “The fuck do I look like, a fucking Sears? You want this—” he holds up the cigarette to Joe’s face “—you want anything, you go to Red, not me.”

“Red?” Questions swirl in Joe’s mind for the faintest moment until the man, getting sick of his presence, points out the only dark-skinned man among a group of them gathered in the shade of a wall.

“That guy there. Now leave me the fuck alone.”

 

* * *

 

“Red?” says Joe again.

But this time he stands in one of Shawshank’s shadows, facing the man who had been pointed out to him. The man whose face is all deep lines, faint whiskers, black skin, and dark hair hidden beneath a prison cap; the man whose eyes are now focusing on him, twinkling even in the scant light. The man they call Red, for whatever reason.

The others regard Joe with what he figures is protective concern, but it would probably be more accurate to call it hostility. Whichever way you frame it.

But the man called Red waves it off and tells them it’s fine, and most of them scatter into the yard, eyeing Joe strangely. The only one who has stayed behind is short, and plump, and Joe can see himself reflected in his glasses.

“What can I do for you, fish?” The man called Red says this so smoothly, removed of the hostile nature that seems to seep from every look and line of dialogue Joe’s received thus far. He is taken aback, if not immediately grateful.    

“I’ve been told you’re the man to go to for…” Joe looks around, suddenly feeling a chill traipse the length of his spine like cold fingers. “...items of various purpose.”

The man called Red smiles. “Hell, the way you looking around, you’re too sketchy for business.”

This coaxes a small laugh from Joe, which is another surprise. You know how laughter has a certain easing effect to it? It is like a balloon rising from a dark pit. “No, no, I’m fixing to buy a pack of smokes, is all.”

“I don’t sell razors or shit like that, I’m telling you now.”

Joe shakes his head. “No need to. My purchase is strictly tobacco, I assure you. Haven’t smoked one in months, but I figure it’s a _pretty small_ fuckup compared to this.” He gestures to the guards, the walls; the entirety of his reduced existence.

“Microscopic,” corrects Glasses.

Joe nods in agreement, then figures proper introductions are in order. “Name’s Joe Hastings.”

Glasses takes on an observing silence, but Red replies, “You can call me Red.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll say that’s an unusual nickname.”

“Not if you’re Irish. Now, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s a kid like you doing in a shithole like this?”

“Well, Red, I’m afraid you’re asking the wrong person."

“Oh yeah? How you come to figure that?”

“I didn’t do it,” Joe says, though the words had felt like stones in his stomach. “I’m innocent.”

There is a peculiar moment of quiet, then the two men before him start cracking up. Glasses holds his stomach as if it'll fall out, wheezing, “Innocent, the guy says. Innocent.”

“Yes,” says Joe, and it would be wrong to say that there aren’t shreds of anger cutting at his composure. “I’m innocent, I don’t belong here.”

“I don’t know,” says Red, “you sure do fit right in. Damn near everybody in here’s just about innocent.”

“How do you mean?”

“You’ll find out yourself, just ask around.”

Joe throws up his hands. “If you don’t believe me, that’s fine. I’m sure I can take my business elsewhere.”

“No need to get fussy, now,” says Red, attitude changing. “You’re in here, everything's out there, and that's how it's gonna be for some time. How long you got?"

"Twenty-five years," Joe answers, his voice laced with a subtle acid. "I wouldn't be so wrong to say that's an awful long time away from everything, would I?"

"Try a life sentence. Then you wouldn't have to wonder about anything."

Silence. The heavy, settling type.

“How much does a pack of Luckies go for?” Joe inquires.

“Twenty-five cents,” Red answers, “but I charge a twenty percent markup, you’ll understand.”

“Alright, then.” Joe extends a hand, but Red places both of his on top of it, quickly guiding it back to Joe’s side while looking about the yard.

“Jesus, could you be any more obvious?” says Glasses. He crosses his arms in front of his chest and leans back even further into the wall—so much so that Joe imagines him falling right through.


	3. Out-There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Three after a hiatus. I've planned for this story to take a different direction, with the addition of another OC who you'll see soon.

Lying on his cot in the darkness, hearing the snoring and the murmuring he may or may not have grown accustomed to by now, Joe reflects on the week he has been in Shawshank.

The passage of time, no matter how miniscule, feels both bitter and alleviating: every second ticking away is a step closer to the end of this prison sentence, but every morsel of time is, of course, wasted.

Nights are difficult. His dreams resort to a past made bitter by the present, and mostly they revolve around Alison. He dreams of her sweet face and her intelligence, which had made him feel inadequate and undeserving of her attention.

Their relationship only amounted to cheap motel rooms—they had seen each other on the sly—but there were flashes of something more after they’d braided themselves into the bed sheets: those moments where she rose in the dark, hair falling down her back, and looked at him with an expression that consisted of so many things, and yet nothing at all.

“You okay?” he asked once.

“Yes,” she said. “Why?”

“You went all woo-woo there for a minute.”

“I was just thinking.” She lay down on the sheets again and sighed. “You should have brought the record player.”

“I know.”

She’s probably seeing somebody else now, Joe thinks. Probably married to a poet or a playwright or a painter; someone as creative and tragic and beautiful as he knew her to be.

His family rarely crops up in his dreams. His father had died in the war. His older brother, Jim, wasn’t much, and surely the trajectory of his life, had it not been cut short by a bullet in the head, would have ended in Shawshank. Maybe they would have been neighbors in the cellblock.

His mother never allowed him a glance at the trial. No matter how many times he told her he was innocent, she still thinks he belongs to rot in here.

And rot he will, starting with his voice. Words remain vague noises in the bottom of his throat, waiting to rise but never given the strength. There is no use for them.

* * *

 

The next morning, during breakfast, there is a new face among Red’s crew.

Joe singles him out immediately. He has the beginnings of a beard, this stranger, and a sheen of sweat. His uniform is tattered, clearly unwashed, and the more Joe analyzes, the more he figures this man must have emerged from a cave.

But his eyes are bright and alive, and he speaks rather animatedly, a smile bowing his lips. As this new guy goes on and on, Red regards him with disbelief, then with rejection. Their dispositions clash like light against dark, and in the end, Red leaves the table without a word.

The new one looks down at his tray for a spell, then, probably sensing someone watching him, he turns in Joe’s direction. But Joe has already snapped back to his table, chewing on his nails, staring blankly at the light playing on the walls.

Minutes pass. Joe risks a furtive look. The stranger is scanning the mess hall, seated in the farthest reaches of his vision.

Thank God for periphery.

* * *

_I’ve had enough of clothes_ , Joe thinks, and miraculously, an opportunity arises. Some men are needed to help get a prison library situated; prospective volunteers are required to enter their names for a drawing.

Awash in the murk of the laundry room, Joe feels like he is floating. A light grows in his chest and he suspects he must look volatile.

So he enters his name, trying not to get worked up, but the laundry room is so hot and monotonous and he needs a change of pace. His mind sours when he thinks of all the other guys casting their names into the jar—his competition—and suddenly nothing is certain and everything relies severely on chance or luck or probability, whatever it is. 

 _I just hope it’s me_ , Joe thinks as the lights go out in the cellblock that night. What an odd thing to do in prison, to hope.

* * *

Joe hardly sees the stranger.

And the man should be easy to find, being tall as all hell. Taller than Hadley and taller than these walls sometimes. Could be taller than this life, and he carries himself well; not gangly like Joe knows of most tall fellows, but with a cruising ease, slow and casual and entirely foreign, not belonging to Shawshank and maybe not even belonging to this slouching planet.

* * *

_Joe Hastings_ is pulled from a healthy pile of names on Monday morning.

* * *

A wall crumbles and dust billows outward into the daylight. A supply closet becomes visible, caked in even more dust and debris. They obviously have their work cut out for them.

Of course _they_ and _them_ refers to the new work crew, Joe included, who are marveling at the luxury of having a library for the incarcerated. The piles of LPs and books, courtesy of local affairs, are just begging to be savored.

The men clear and clean the closet, minding the space reserved for shelves. Long shafts of wood trade hands like a game before ending up sawn and nailed together.

Joe has been given a small amount to do, and he takes little breaks in between to admire how swiftly the area is coming together. How each person does their own thing, but how it all manages to look like a web of productivity.

As he watches, footsteps approach from behind. Joe tenses, foolishly wondering if Hadley had decided to pay him a visit.

But the voice that comes is genial, maybe even forgiving. Familiar. “Resting up, I see?” Red.

Joe spins around and tries to stifle his embarrassment. “I’m just trying to absorb it all, I guess. I mean, a prison library. Who’d ever think that’d come to Shawshank?”

“You think you know enough about Shawshank in the two weeks you’ve been here?”

“Well, I think I know a thing or two about it. And a night in here feels like a lifetime.”

“Hell, I wish it was.” Red fixes him with a smile. “Think you can work more than you think?”

“Oh yeah, I can definitely—” Joe remembers his duties and fumbles with his stack of wood, but it all goes clattering down.

Red stoops to help him. “You normally this out-there?”

“Out-there?” Joe raises an eyebrow.

“You give off that kind of vibe.” They stand, and Red points to the man huddled over a stack of books: the stranger from the table, cleaned up now. His blue eyes glitter with an intellectual light. “Same as Andy over there.”

“What’s he doing in prison?”

“Double murder. Two life sentences.”

Joe shakes his head. “You’re pulling my leg. That guy looks like he belongs in a library or something.”

“He usta belong to a bank. Before he pulled the trigger, that is.”

“You think he did it?”

“I’m not sure. Then again, I’m not sure about anything with him. Andy’s one of those types who always have their gears turning, but never miss a beat.”

 _Sounds like Alison_ , Joe thinks. He hoists the wood up, ready to carry it over to two guys who will need it soon, but Red catches his arm. “What are you in for? Johnny, right?”

“Joe. And, no offence, but I’m not partial to telling you or anybody.”

“No need to act all uppity around here.”

“I just don’t need these people knowing about my business, is all. I’m trying to keep to myself. Trying to get through this sentence with as little noise as possible.”

“Well, here’s a thing you _don’t_ know about Shawshank: we all know each other. People like you when they know about you. When they don’t know about you, they don’t what they’re dealing with. And when they don’t know about something, they’re more likely to attack it.”

Joe takes a minute to absorb this. “So what you’re saying is, there’s no way of keeping private without the threat of someone wanting to attack you?”

“You’re in prison, man. How private did you think you were gonna be?”

“It’s not like I’ve done this before.”

“I think it’s common knowledge. These men are gonna think you’re uppity, and people don’t like uppity.”

“Maybe I don’t want to fit in with this prison. Maybe that’s why these men get swallowed up by it: by allowing it to happen. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do. That’s what you’ve come over here to tell me in the first place, wasn’t it?”

Joe pushes past, and when he looks back after a minute or so, he sees that Red is gone as well.

* * *

Shawshank has a room in which movies are shown, though the only film shown is _Gilda_. Rita Hayworth commands the screen with her eyes and her voice and her hair, just as she commands every pair of eyes that belong to an inmate.

But tonight, the room is less crowded than usual. Tonight, Joe sits through the movie, just as everyone else has, hearing the lewd remarks cast at the leading lady and the odd chuckle or two. But really he listens to the faint flickering sound of the projector as he picks at his fingers. It's a terrible habit; Joe has broken through the skin more times than he can count.

What’s it like to kill two people? What’s it like to kill at all? How easy can it be to draw blood like that?

Joe breaks through the skin of his thumb for the hundredth time and sees blood form, pool, and then glide down in rivulets. _Maybe it’s as easy as that_ , he thinks. _Andy..._


End file.
